Floodlight delays force third Australia-India women's ODI to shift from Melbourne to Hobart - World News Network

Melbourne [Australia], September 10 (ANI): Delays in installing the new floodlights at Melbourne’s Junction Oval have forced Cricket Australia to shift the third women’s ODI between Australia and India, scheduled for March 1, to Hobart, as per ESPNcricinfo.
The match was initially planned to be the Oval’s first-ever floodlit fixture, but planning delays and ongoing construction work, which would have affected spectator access left officials with no choice but to move the game to Tasmania. With this change, Hobart will now host back-to-back ODIs in the series.
Given the tight schedule, with only a day’s gap between the second and third ODIs, shifting the Junction Oval match to a day game wasn’t considered practical. The MCG, which hosted the day-night Ashes Test last season, will also be unavailable due to renovation work.
“We are disappointed we have had to move this match from Junction Oval and that there will be no women’s international match in Melbourne this season,” Peter Roach, CA’s head of cricket operations and scheduling, said, as quoted from ESPNcricinfo.
“We anticipated the Junction Oval lights would be installed several weeks before this fixture and were looking forward to celebrating the first international match under lights at the ground,” he added.
Despite the setback, Junction Oval will continue to host Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) matches involving the Melbourne Stars and Melbourne Renegades, along with other scheduled domestic fixtures, all of which will be day games.
This ODI series is part of a multi-format contest between India and Australia, starting with three T20Is and concluding with a day-night Test at the WACA in Perth.
Australia’s home international season for the women’s team has been pushed to February and March to accommodate the Women’s Premier League (WPL) in January and the ODI World Cup later in October. As a result, the Australian women will be returning to play on home soil after a gap of over 12 months.
“Not having an international fixture in that school holiday period does hurt a little bit, but in saying that, it kind of extends the cricket season, which isn’t completely a bad thing for our sport,” captain Alyssa Healy said earlier this year, as quoted from ESPNcricinfo.
“At the back end of the Ashes (last year), I felt like that was really cool to have it at the end of the Border-Gavaskar (Trophy), so hopefully there’s similar sort of momentum this year at the end of the men’s Ashes, that there’s still some more cricket to watch,” she added. (ANI)

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